I'll meet you at the darkest time
by cizzi-B
Summary: When Bonnie wakes up a member of the undead and a comatose Elena mysteriously dissapears, Bonnie, along with her friends must figure out what malovent force is targeting mystic falls. She must work to defend mystic falls while coping with her newfound bloodlust, strange powers and complicated feelings for a certain raven-haired, blue eyed vampire.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Bonnie Bennett was almost certain she was going to die. She was pretty sure a stab wound to the stomach was not healthy and more so when you were in the middle of the woods miles from any medical care.

She could'nt remember exactly how she got here or where _here_ was exactly. She could not recognize any of the surrounding forestry. The forest did not seem like any of the forests surrounding mystic falls. It was stranger and darker than any forest she had ever been in, she could not see much but she felt as if she was not alone, as if someone was watching her under the cover of the shadows that abounded this forest.

She did not know what this place was or who it was she felt watching her, but she knew that very soon she would be beyond knowing anything at all, or at the very least she would be somewhere where it would be unimportant. She had wondered where the supernatural creatures went and she guessed now she would found out.

Bonnie Bennett did not .Instead she woke up in a comfortable bed that was not her own surrounded by the concerned faces of Damon, Stefan and Caroline.

Bonnie shot up into a sitting position "where am i? what happened to me?"

"You're at the boarding house" Caroline answered, taking a seat beside Bonnie on the bed, " how are you feeling Bonnie?"

Bonnie wasn't sure. If Caroline meant physically, than she was completely fine. There was no aches and pains, no bleeding. She didn't even feel bandages underneath her shirt when she pressed her hands to where she had been stabbed. What had happened last night? She couldn't have just dreamt it all, it had felt too real. Too painful.

"I don't know. I thought I was going to d-"

"Die? You did" there wasn't just concern on Damon's face, but a bitter sort of anger aswell.

"What do you mean?" Bonnie knew what was knew what he was going to say but she wanted to pretend that she didn't, that for a second there was other possible explanations for her apparent survival

"You're a vampire now" Damon said, his blue eyes staring intently into Bonnie's green ones "I turned you"

Bonnie took a deep breath, her face taking on a panicked, horrified expression

" I couldn't just let you go out like that, alright?" Damon in response to her expression, his tone defensive and frustrated.

Caroline pulled Bonnie into a tight embrace "it's going to be OK Bonnie, I promise. we will get you through this"

"I just don't understand how it happened. How did I end up like this?" Bonnie said, turning herself in caroline's arms to look her in the eye.

"We don't know" Stefan answered with a sigh, running his hands through his spikey blonde hair "We found you about two days go in the woods opposite the boarding house, unconscious with a knife sticking out of your stomach"

"I was out for _two_ days?"

Stefan frowned " Yeah. Damon tried to heal you with his blood but you were too far gone for it to work. So Damon made the decision to feed you enough of his blood so you would…"

"Become a vampire" Bonnie finished for him, in the resigned tone of someone who was used to misfortune.

"An undead life is better than no life at me" Damon argued

"You don't understand" Bonnie countered "My magic Damon! It's gone. Again"

The anger in Damon's voice when he responded was match for Bonnie's "So you would rather be completely dead than be without your magic? is that what your telling me right now?"

"No thats not what I'm sayi-" Bonnie cut herself off with a groan of frustration. He didn't get it, he never would " this isn't what I wanted for myself"

Damon looked away before he spoke again "I know Bonnie, I know"

A silence fell over the group then, heavy and awkward and slightly mournful. Stefan was the first to break the silence " I know this is hard...but it's up to you what happens next. You can decide to feed and transition fully or you can decide to just...let yourself drift off"

It was then that Bonnie noticed the cooler by the door filled with, she presumed, blood bags. She thought about what it would be like to drink one, about what it would be like to take one and drink it down, squeeze out every last drop like it was some kind of gory juice more she thought about it, the more her hunger grew. Well not hunger, that wasn't the right word. It was more of a burning really. She began to feel as if she was burning from inside and the only thing that would put out the fire was in that cooler. She also thought about what it would mean to just let herself drift off into the great beyond. She thought about how she wasn't truly ready to do that just yet.

Bonnie asked for one of the blood bags.

After she had fed bonnie had wanted to be alone after she had fed, needing time to process what her life would be like now and the gang respected all of five minutes.

Damon was the first to intrude on her privacy, two hours later, brandishing a bottle of bourbon. He looked a little less distressed and little less guilty than he did before. She supposed that a part of his guilt before had been that he had tried to save her with his blood, only to force her to die in a more drawn out, painful way.

"I didn't feel like drinking alone" he explained, as he took a seat beside her on the bed " how are you holding up?"

"ok i guess" she answered and it was the truth. She felt fine _now_ since she fed and sequestered herself in a room at the salvatore boarding house. The real test she thought, would be when she had to face the real world.

Damon threw her a funny look then, one she couldn't quite decipher. "here drink this, it will make you feel better"

Bonnie grabbed the bottle Damon offered and took one long gulp. She felt the burn of it as it slid down and suprisingly she did start to feel a bit better.

"Who knew you could knock it back like that?" Damon said with a raised eyebrow

Bonnie took another swig from the bottle before handing it back, "its been a long week"

Damon chortled but made no other turned her head to look at admired the sharp, chiseled lines of his face and how soft his inky black hair looked against the white pillows. She thought about how two of the buttons on his shirt were open and if he unbuttoned one more he would practically be thought about his thigh pressing against hers on the bed, the warmth from his leg emanating into hers and how good it felt. Bonnie shook her head. Clearly, the bourbon was going to her decided that it would good idea to break the silence that had fallen between since Damon took a drink, and that she would do that by asking one of the questions that had been bothering since the shock of waking up from dead had worn off

"Damon...where's Elena? Has she woken up?"

Damon took another drink from from the bottle before he answered her " I don't know. We can't find her"

"what do you mean you cant find her! where could she possibly be?"

"I don't know" Damon answered " All i know is that when we had done all we could for you and Stefan went to see if she had woken up, and she wasn't there"

Bonnie ran her hands through her hair "What the hell is going on?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Damon hadn't meant to tell her. All he had really wanted was to keep her company, to find out how well she was _really_ coping with this whole vampire thing. He wondered if she realised that the bottle of bourbon they had been drinking used to be the only one she could stomach drinking with him. But now it was ruined.

When she had asked him like she did, he found he couldn't lie to her. Partly because he was too tired to come with a lie decent enough to convince but also because it had become a habit of his, in recent years, to always tell Bonnie the truth. Maybe it was because Bonnie knew him so well at this point that she could nearly always tell when he was lying anyway, maybe he had just gotten used to telling her everything. It didn't matter, the result was the same. He was incapable of lying to her, even when he thought she was better off not knowing the truth.

"How could this of happened? No-one but us should have been able to get into her tomb, my spell should have made sure of that" Bonnie questioned, as she paced up and down the room

Her voice was high pitched and full of panic and like a punch to Damon's gut. He responded with a sigh "I don't know Bonnie. There wasn't any sign of a struggle down there so we're assuming that she was either taken before she could wake up or...she woke up and left on her own"

"Do you really think she would do that?" Bonnie asked pain clearly visible on her face "Just leave without talking to us first? Without saying goodbye?"

"I don't know. Who knows what went through her head when she woke up."

"We still have to find her, Damon" Damon recognized that tone of voice, one that meant she was not to be argued with

"I know. But we can't do anything about it tonight. You should get some sleep" He was about to leave and let her do just that, when her stricken expression made him stop short "Will figure this out bonnie, it's going to be fi-"

"It's not just that...entirely…" Bonnie wasn't looking him in the eye but was instead was staring intently at her shoes

"Then what is it?" She was scaring him now, with her downcast expression and her small quiet voice. He was sure that whatever it was she was about to say would just be the icing on the crap cake that had been everyone's week so far.

Bonnie looked up from her shoes to answer him "When i was attacked, i was asleep. I felt it happen in my dreams, i felt the knife slide into my stomach, and I felt myself running and running and never getting anywhere...the feeling of someone watching me. I'm just scared about what might happen if i go asleep again. If they could get inside my head once…"

"I could sleep here with you, if that would make feel any better"

Bonnie's eyes widened at his response "Damon, i couldn't ask you do that. Where would you even sleep? I was just saying that I-"

"The couch in here is just fine. I'll go get some blankets"

Bonnie did dream that night. In this dream she found herself in the same place she found herself two nights ago, and just like two nights ago she could not remember how she got there or why she was there. All she could do was keeping moving forward, the sick feeling in her stomach increasing with every step.

Then she felt it, the feeling that someone was watching her, waiting for her, just out of sight. She knew whoever or whatever it was that was watching her, it did not wish her well.

Summoning up all the courage she could muster, she shouted "Come out and face me! Stop hiding!"

She did not truly expect a response, but she got one "But Bonnie, I'm not hiding, can't you seem me? I am all around you. I am the ground you're walking on, the trees you see all around you and the air you breathe…"

"Who are you?" Bonnie's nausea increased with every word the voice spoke. The voice felt like it came from nowhere and everywhere. "What do you want from me?"

"Who i am is unimportant and you have already given me what i want"

Bonnie wanted to cry with frustration "Then why am i here"

"Maybe i just want to punish you"

And with that, Bonnie woke up screaming.

When she woke up Damon was at her side. "Bonnie, it's alright you're awake, it was just a dream"

"They said they wanted to punish me, I don't know anyone alive who would hate me that much"

Damon pulled her close and held her tight, rubbing slow, reassuring circles on her back. She felt insanely comforted by the feel of his arms around his hands at her back. She took deep breaths to calm herself down, breathing in the scent of bourbon and cologne that always seemed to cling around Damon.

It was when she calmed down that she noticed two things. The first thing was that Damon legs were under the covers. The second thing was that Damon was shirtless.

Bonnie took one more calming breath before she spoke "Damon weren't you supposed to be sleeping on the couch?"

"The couch ended up not being as comfortable as i thought i would be" Damon shrugged

Bonnie raised an eyebrow "So you decided to sleep in my bed?"

"It's a pretty big bed; i didn't think you'd mind." He was right. The Salvatore boarding house had some pretty large rooms, which meant some suitably large furnishings to match. Like the king size bed they were currently sitting on. "Besides aren't you glad i was here?"

Bonnie didn't know how to answer that question, so she didn't she got up instead.


	3. Chapter 3

Bonnie found Caroline sitting at the Salvatore kitchen table, staring intently at a notebook with a pen in her mouth, and coffee in her favourite red mug at her side

Bonnie gave a little cough to grab her attention causing her to look up startled and slam the notebook in front of her "oh! Good morning Bonnie! How are you feeling this morning? I don't know if you're hungry but there's some cereal left and there's coffee in th-"

"I'm fine Caroline" Bonnie said, deciding she better cut in before Caroline got anymore flustered "I'll get some coffee"

As Bonnie got her coffee, Caroline eyed her worriedly "Are you sure you're ok? Do you need more blood? Because you can say if you do, you don't have to be embarrassed about it."

"Thanks Caroline, but I'm all good on the blood front, maybe later" Bonnie replied, bemused by Caroline's fussing.

"Ok"

Bonnie pointed towards Caroline's discarded pen and notebook "What are you working on?"

"It's nothing" Caroline bit her lip and focused intensely on the coffee in front of her

Bonnie raised a single eyebrow "Caroline"

"Alright fine, I've been thinking the best thing we can do is leave mystic falls and I've been trying to plan the best way to do that"

Bonnie eyes widened in surprise "Caroline, we have been in danger, before, you have never wanted to skip town because of it."

"It's different this time. It feels different this time. Don't you think so?"

 _It does_ Bonnie thought to herself. This time felt more personal than other dangers they had faced before. Before they had simply been pawns in some larger plan. Before, they had been tools needed to achieve a goal or obstacles to be cleared away. This time the main goal wasn't more power or glory, it was simply revenge and they were the targets. She didn't need last night's dream to tell her that.

"Yes, i do. But i don't think running away will help. I think whoever is doing this will just follow us wherever we go."

Caroline sighed "That's what Stefan said. I just wish we knew more about who did this"

"I think that -" Bonnie was cut off by the sound of door opening and closing at the other end of the house. It made her shiver to think that only a few days ago she wouldn't have been able to hear it. A few seconds later, Stefan entered the kitchen a worried expression on his face and some kind of weapon held tightly in his hands

"Guys ! I think i found something" he turned towards Bonnie "I think...I think this is the knife they used to stab you Bonnie"

Bonnie took a slow step forward. She wasn't sure she wanted to see it, but she felt like she had too. From the way Stefan was acting, she could tell there was something significant about this knife, something that put him more on edge than a regular weapon would. She took it gently from his hands.

It was certainly different from a regular knife. The blade seemed regular enough, though the sight of her blood on the blade, her human blood, gave her pause. No, it was the handle that made her heart race in fear. It was solid silver, covered in intricate decoration and in the centre of this blade was a depiction of a white bird, its head bent at a grotesque angle and some sort of red gem serving as the bird's eye. It seemed so angry and twisted to Bonnie's eyes.

She handed it back to Stefan, wanting to handle the blade as little as possible "Do you recognise that symbol, Stefan?"

"I was actually hoping you would be able to recognise it"

Bonnie raised a single eyebrow "me?"

"I mean...does it look like some sort magic symbol? Something you might have come across before?" Stefan explained, with a hopefulness that made her wish she could say that she did recognise it. But she didn't.

Reluctantly, she took the knife back off of Stefan, trying to fight off the revulsion she felt at having it close. She had definitely never seen it before, she realised as she turned it over in her hands, but she felt there was something magic about it, something dark.

"I have never seen anything like this symbol before...but i have all my grandmother's books back at my house, maybe there's something in there about it."

They had spent the past 5 hours in Bonnie's living room, searching through Sheila Bennett's vast collection of books on witchcraft and still they had found nothing.

Bonnie was frustrated. She knew there was something significant about that knife, something but she could not figure out what. She could feel the magic rolling off it when she held it her hands, making her feel nauseous and her head hurt. But _whose_ magic was it? What could it even do? What did it do to _her?_ These were questions Bonnie desperately needed answers to.

Damon looked like she felt, reclining in the blue, high-backed chair by the living room fire, a chair that had always been Bonnie's favourite. He was flicking through the book in his hand, as quickly as he possibly could while still skim reading each page, with his forehead furrowed in frustration.

"Well there's nothing in this one" Damon said, waving the book in the air, just above his head before placing it in the pile of books already searched through at his right hand side "Just like there hasn't been in the last ten books i searched through"

His tone was peevish, sarcastic and grated on Bonnie's nerves "looks Damon we're all frustrated ok? But this knife is the only lead we have so far and we need to find out all we can about it"

"Yeah Damon" Caroline piped up "no one asked you to help anyway"

Damon stood up from his chair before he spoke; his hands raised in a defensive gesture "Well excuse me for thinking that we're wasting time"

"How can researching the murder weapon be a waste of time, Damon?" Stefan questioned, not even bothering to look up from the book he was searching through.

"It's a waste of time when we can just go and ask the culprit" Damon responded, a petulant tone to his voice.

Stefan closed his book, and turned around to face Damon "Just because our mother has… a past does not mean she has done this"

"Oh _come on_ Stefan!"

It was just as it was about to descend into a shouting match, that bonnie noticed something

"Shut up guys, i found something"

Damon was over in a second "What?"

"Do you see this?" Bonnie responded, pointing to the cover of a book decrepit with age "that is the exact same symbol that's on the knife"

The cover of the book read _past magical societies: Their rise and fall_


	4. Chapter 4

_Triumph over death society_

 _The triumph over death society was founded at the turn of the 17th century by William Loxley, an English student and practitioner of the occult. This society worshipped Silas, who they believed found a way to achieve eternal life. This was their obsession, finding a way to become immortal while still retaining their natural powers. This cult also believed in vampires, immortal creatures, but also believed that achieving immortality through these means would rob them of the powers they believed they possessed. From this, grew their obsession with finding some other way of living forever, of having everything._

 _Added to this desire, was also a fear of change, of losing things they held founder of this organisation, William loxley lost his parents at a very young, and had no real fixed home after their death, until he reached adulthood. It would make sense that such a man would fear death and loss, but also change. It would also make sense that a man with Loxely's charm, would also attract others who felt the same way to follow him._

 _The society eventually found a way to achieve their aims. They discovered that if they removed their magic from their system and storing these powers in certain objects before they made the transformation into vampire and then reabsorbed these powers later once the transformation had been complete. It is unknown how they achieved this, but they were incredibly successful and eventually developed weapons that could absorb magic._

 _This development would have a serious impact on the direction of the society as a whole._

The book continued on for two more pages, detailing the progression of this group but Bonnie couldn't bring herself to read anymore. She was still trying to process two things what she read so far seemed to suggest :1) The knife was associated in someway with a group obsessed with Silas, a warlock whose demise she was responsible for. 2) Her magic was possibly in said knife.

Damon gave her shoulder a squeeze, an attempt at being reassuring "listen...this is like number 10 on the top ten list of evil bastards we have come up against"

She had not noticed Damon reading over her shoulder, but she became acutely aware of him as he spoke. She became aware of the weight of his hand still resting on her shoulder and the slight anxiety in his tone, even as he was trying to be comforting.

"Thanks Damon" Bonnie replied, while handing the book over to Stefan and Caroline " I just don't understand it"

Damon's forehead creased in confusion "Understand what?"

"why they'd dump my body near somewhere they'd have to know i would be found? and if my magic is in that knife like i think it it is, why did they just leave it there? why do they think killing me wasn't enough punishment?"

"we know a lot more than we did this morning" Caroline responded, trying to be comforting "we have something to go on now"

Bonnie ran a hand through her hair and let out a sigh "I guess you're right"

"Besides there is nothing more we can do today" Damon said, grabbing Bonnie's jacket from the high back she had tossed it earlier "and you need to rest. Let me take you home."

"I am Home." Bonnie responded, raising a single eyebrow

Damon narrowed his eyes in Bonnie's direction "You know what i mean. The boarding house."

Bonnie turned her back to the group, ostensibly to put some books back on the shelves. Damon acted so often as if he was incapable of being embarrassed or phased, that she never missed an oppurtunity to show him to be as capable of being embarrassed as anyone else. Even when she felt her world of collapsing in on itself.

"I'll guess i'll go get my stuff"

" You know you don't have to keep holding on to that thing" Damon said in a bemused tone of voice, breaking the loaded silence that had enveloped them since they got into his car 10 minutes before

"I know" Bonnie answered, though she made no move to let the knife go.

The possibility that her own magic could be residing within the strange knife she held tightly in her hands changed how she viewed it. For one, Instead of wanting it as far away from her as possible, she didn't want to let it out of her sight. It held her magic, and the thought of it falling into the wrong hands, of her own magic being used to cause filled her with dread. She also felt now that her own uneasy feelings towards the knife earlier were not simply because she felt the malevolent magic within it, but because she could also sense her own, somewhere it shouldn't be.

"So...How are you going get your magic out of that thing and back into you?"

Bonnie had grown used to Damon's lack of tact at this point."I don't know" she sighed "I don't even know if i should"

"What do you mean ' I don't even know if i should'" Damon asked, incredulous "It's _your_ magic"

"Some it i, yeah. But there is magic in this knife that's dark and twisted in a way mine never was" Bonnie responded, her tone grave "and if i try and take my magic from it, what if i take this other magic too? what if being a vampire with magic makes me just like the people your mother calls family?I don't know if i want to risk it."

Suddenly, Bonnie was struck by the fear that the person who seemed to understand her best in the world would misunderstand her.

Damon kept his gaze focused on the road ahead of him. Bonnie could see his hands tighten on the wheel and the tense set of his jaw.

"You could never be like the freaks my mother surrounds herself. But i guess it is up to you what you do with it. Like i said it's your magic."

It shocked Bonnie he was being so understanding without more of a fight. There was silence then in the car but it wasn't an uncomfortable , out of the corner of her eye, Bonnie saw it.

In the dark of the night, she could just make out a human figure, stumbling there way out on to the road from the forest that surrounded the it on either side. "Damon, stop the car!"

"why?" Damon questioned, confused yet doing exactly what she told him to "Whats go-"

Then he saw it, and followed Bonnie as she made her way out of the car. They didn't have to go very far from the car, before they saw clearly who it was.

"Elena?"


End file.
